The Unix Operating System

SE 101 Spiros Mancoridis

What is an OS?
An operating system (OS) is software that manages the resources of a computer Like most managers, the OS aims to manage its resources in a safe and efcient way Examples of computer resources are: CPU, RAM, disk memory, printers, displays, keyboard, mouse, etc The OS also isolates users and application programmers from the underlying computer

Operating Systems
Microsoft Windows Unix

OS Architecture

Without an OS, every application would have to implement some part of this software hierarchy ...

Unix
A popular multi-user, multi-tasking OS Attributes: stability, portability, security Created at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson (won the ACM Turing Award in 1983) Unix is considered one of the greatest achievements in computer science Has been around since the 1960s in various forms, e.g., AIX, SCO Unix, SunOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux, Mac OS X

Unix
Multiuser and Multitasking Toolbox philosophy Concise syntax Designed by programmers for programmers

1983 ACM Turning Award (Unix)

ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery
Worlds largest educational and scientic computer society You can become a student member too www.acm.org
Thompson and Ritchie

The ACM awards the Turing Award every year. It is the Nobel Prize of computing Named after british mathematician Alan M. Turing (1912-1954)
Alan M. Turing

Unix Kernel
Includes device drivers for computer hardware devices, e.g., graphics cards, network cards, disks
A device driver is a program that allows computer programs to interact with hardware devices

CPU and memory management File system management Implements system calls that can be used by application programs and system utilities

Whats inside the Box?

The von Neumann Architecture The OS hides this complexity from the programmer

Unix Shells and GUIS

Shells are used for command line input/output to and from users
e.g., sh (Bourne shell), bash (Bourne again shell), csh (C shell), ksh(Korn shell)

GUIs are used for graphical I/O

e.g., Linux KDE, GNOME, Mac OS Leopard

Unix System Utilities

System utilities are specialized software tools (commands) e.g.,
ls, cp, grep, awk, bc, wc, more, rm, mkdir, ...

Daemons provide remote network and administration services e.g.,

ssh (remote login) lpd (remote printing) httpd (serves web pages)

Unix Application Programs

This is the software that users commonly interact with e.g., vi and emacs (text editors) gcc (GNU C compiler) javac (Java compiler) java (Java run time virtual machine system)

What is a programming language?

A programming language is an articial language designed to express computations that will be executed on a computer Programming languages have a syntax (form) and semantics (meaning) Java and C are example programming languages

What is a compiler?
A compiler is a computer program that transforms human readable source code of another computer program into machine readable code that a computer can execute. The act of transforming source code into machine code is called compilation.
package com.javadb.examples; import java.util.Arrays; import java.util.List; import java.util.Iterator; public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) { String[] array = {"Programming", "is", "cool"}; List<String> list = Arrays.asList(array); Iterator<String> iterator = list.iterator(); while (iterator.hasNext()) { System.out.println(iterator.next()); } } }

Java Source Code Java Compilation Process

What is a Virtual Machine?

A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a computer that executes programs like a physical computer A system VM implements a complete computer that can support the execution of a real OS (e.g., vmware, KVM) A process VM is designed to run a single program (e.g., Java VM) Improves program portability, i.e., the ability to reuse software on a different platform with little or no modication

Logging into Unix

login: <type your user id> password: <type your password>

$ pwd /home/spiros $ exit

Logging into Unix

userid is the unique name of the user password can be changed password should only be known by user system staff does not know user password, but they have the power to change it Unix is case sensitive

passwords ... do
make sure no one is looking while you enter your password change your password often choose a password that you can remember use at least 8 characters (letters) in your password Mix letters (upper and lower case) with digits and punctuation

Passwords ... Dont

use a word that can be found in a dictionary use a name keep your password written on a piece of paper use control characters use personal information (e.g., address, birthday, name of pet) ever give your password to anybody

changing password
Use the Unix passwd command You will be prompted for both your current password (once) and your new password (twice) change your initial password immediately

Logging out of unix

logout exit ^D leaves the system quits the shell same as logout, but often disabled

Unix Commands
$ command -options targets man man (a manual on the Unix manual) There should be a man page for every Unix command e.g., man ls Read the man pages, they are very useful and convenient

Some Unix commands

passwd date hostname who last nger w clear cal bc -l history ssh Try these Unix commands and see what they do ... The man pages can give you details on how to use these (and other) commands

Unix Filesystem
Ordinary Files
Files contain data, program code, etc File names cannot have the / character in them

Directories Contain les and other directories Links A link is a pointer reference to another le (like an alias) Devices Allows applications to access hardware devices

Unix Filesystem HierArchy

Unix DiRectories
/ /bin /usr/bin /sbin /lib The "root" directory Essential low-level system utilities Higher-level system utilities and application programs Superuser system utilities (for performing system administration tasks) Program libraries (collections of system calls that can be included in programs by a compiler)for low-level system utilities Program libraries for higher-level user programs Temporary file storage space (can be used by any user) User home directories containing personal file space for each user. Each directory is named after the login of the user. UNIX system configuration and information files Hardware devices A pseudo-filesystem which is used as an interface to the kernel.! Includes a subdirectory for each active program (or process).

/usr/lib /tmp /home

/etc /dev /proc

Useful Unix Filesystem commands

$ cd /usr/bin $ pwd /usr/bin $ cd / $ ls
bin/ lib/ media/ proc/ selinux/ sys/ var/ boot/! root/ site/ tmp/ etc/ opt/ sbin/ srv/ usr/ dev/ homes/ lib32/ mnt/

$ man ls

ls -l
!An example of the output is of ls -l is: drwxr-xr-x 3 spiros serg 238 May 5 2:05 license.dat

! type is a single character which is either 'd' (directory), '-' (ordinary le), 'l' (symbolic link). ! permissions is a set of characters describing access rights. There are 9 permission characters, describing 3 access types given to 3 user categories. The three access types are read ('r'), write ('w') and execute ('x'), and the three users categories are the user who owns the le, users in the group that the le belongs to and other users (the general public). An 'r', 'w' or 'x' character means the corresponding permission is present; a '-' means it is absent. ! links refers to the number of lesystem links pointing to the le or directory. ! owner is the user who created the le or directory. ! group denotes a collection of users who are allowed to access the le according to the group access rights specied in the permissions eld. ! size is the length of a le, or the number of bytes used by the operating system to store the list of les in a directory. ! date is the date when the le or directory was last modied. The -u option display the time when the le was last accessed (read). ! name is the name of the le or directory.

Useful Unix Filesystem commands

cd path (change directory to path) mkdir directory (make a new directory) rmdir directory (remove a directory) cp source-le destination-le (copy source-le into destination-le) cp source-le(s) destination-directory (copy source les into destination-directory)

useful unix lesystem commands

mv source destination (move/rename source le or directory to destination le or directory) rm le(s) (remove/delete les) rm -rf directory (remove entire directory) cat target-le(s) (concatenate target les and display them on the screen) cat target-le(s) > output.txt (store concatenation to output le)

useful unix lesystem commands

ln -s lename linkname (create a pointer to lename and call it linkname) cat ?piros (concatenates all les that start with any character and end with piros) cat * (concatenates all les in the current directory) ls [a-c]*[x-z] (lists les that start with a letter from a-c and end with a letter from x-z)

File and Directory Permissions

chmod options les
for options u (user), g (group), o (other), a (all), r (read), w (write), x (execute), + (add permission), - (remove permission), = (assign permission)

What does chmod ug=rw, o-rw, a-x *.txt do? How about chmod -R go+r dir ? How about chmod 600 private.txt ? chgrp group le(s) (changes the group permissions for the les, works with -R option)

UNIX File Commands

le lename(s) (reports on the type of a le e.g., text, HTML, Java source code) head -num lename (displays the rst num lines of a le) tail -num lename (displays the last num lines of a le) tail -f lename (continuously outputs the last few lines of a le being modied)

the unix nd command

nd directory -name targetle -print (look for targetle in any part of the directory rooted at directory), e.g., nd /home -name *.java -print which command (gives path where the executable code of command resides), e.g., which ls (should return /bin/ls)

unix grep command

grep options pattern les (searches the les for lines that match a given pattern). e.g., grep Drexel *.txt grep Drexel `nd . -name *.txt -print` grep -i drexel *.txt

unix sort command

sort lename(s) (sorts line in a group of concatenated les alphabetically) sort -n lename(s) (sorts line in a group of concatenated les numerically) uniq lename (removes duplicate adjacent lines from a le) sort in1.txt in2.txt > out.txt

unix le archiving
tar -cvf archivename lenames (create archive from a list of les or directories) tar -tvm archivename (list contents of an archive) tar -xvf archivename (extract and restore archive) tar -cvf code.tar src tar -xvf code.tar

unix le compression
zip lename.zip directory/* (compresses contents of directory and store them in lename.zip) unzip lename.zip (uncompress contents of lename.zip) Other Unix compression tools are: gzip compress

Unix processes
You can get the status and process id of each process running on the system Check the man pages because options for ps may vary from one Unix system to another ps auxw ps -ef To terminate a process use the kill command kill -9 process-id

Printing
lpr -Pprinterid lename lpq -Pprinterid [job#] [userid] lprm -Pprinterid [job#] [userid]

The vi text editor (pronounced V-I)

To run vi type the following on the command line: $ vi lename vi has three modes: command mode: to navigate through the document insert mode: to add text to the document command line mode: to perform manipulations on the les (e.g., search, save)

The Three Modes of vi

Command Mode ZZ / : return
i l

ESC

Text Insertion Mode

Line Command

Moving the cursor

You can use your arrow keys Or you can use the h, j, k, l keys h move left one space j move down one space k move up one space l move right one space You can move faster by typing 5 h to move left 5 spaces, etc

Moving the cursor

^F go forward in the document by 1 screen ^B go backward in the document by 1 screen ^D go down in the document by half a screen ^U go up in the document by half a screen
Note that ^ means hold the control key down e.g., ^F means hold the control key down and press F. The F,B,D,U characters are non case sensitive

Moving the cursor

G go to the last line in the le n G go to the nth line in the le $ go to the end of the current line

^ go to the beginning of current line (use carat key not control key) 0 w b e same as ^, go to beginning of current line forward one word, use n w to go forward n words backward one word, use n b to go backward n words go to end of the word

Inserting text
i insert text before the cursor a append text after the cursor I insert text at the beginning of line A append text at the end of line o open new line after current line O open new line before current line

Deleting text
dd delete current line n dd delete n lines starting from the current line dw delete word

n dw delete n next words D x nx X delete from cursor to the end of current line delete current character delete next n characters delete previous character (backspace)

changing text
cw change current word n cw change n words starting at current word c$ ~ J u change from cursor to the end of line change case of character join next line to the current line undo last command

n u undo last n commands

changing text
.
yy repeat last change yank current line into a storage buffer (copy)

n yy yank next n lines into a storage buffer yw yank current word into a storage buffer

n yw yank next n lines into a storage buffer p P put yanked buffer text (or deleted text) after cursor put yanked buffer text (or deleted text) before cursor

Manipulating les
:w write le to disk (save) :wq write le to disk (save), then exit vi (quit) :w! force overwrite of le :q quit vi if no changes have been made

:q! quit vi without saving any of the changes :! command escape to shell and run command :r! command insert the result of command at current cursor position